Paul – Mt Freedom Baptist Church

The account found in Acts 9 of Saul of Tarsus’ transformation into Paul the apostle after Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus is perhaps the best known example of God’s desire and the power of His Spirit to restore seemingly irredeemable, deeply flawed people into His instruments for accomplishing His purposes. God used Paul mightily to establish and nurture His Church throughout the Mediterranean basin despite the initial misgivings of the Christ followers whom Saul had previously persecuted. Saul’s supernatural transformation into Paul is a great encouragement for us. God continues today to redeem and restore even the most seemingly hopeless sinners and then put us to work as His representatives to reach our lost world with the restorative Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In chapter 2 of his letter to the Colossians, Paul encourages Christ followers to continue working on their relationship with the Lord Jesus. Certainly, we can rest assured in our salvation through faith in Jesus’ Gospel, but our new spiritual life in Him should be much more. Paul also tells us of the benefits of growing in the knowledge of our Lord. Of course, we must continue to learn about God through His Word, but even more so, we must cling as closely to Jesus as possible and allow the Holy Spirit to direct us throughout our days – all while remaining intentionally focused on Jesus as Lord over our entire being.

Since mankind’s rebellion in the Garden of Eden all of us have been estranged from God our Father by our sins. But Jesus made the way for everyone who believes in His Gospel to be reconciled to God and returned to our proper relationship with Him as His beloved children.

In his letter to the church at Colossae, Paul addressed a misconception among them that Jesus can’t be Immanuel – God in human flesh, because their view was that all flesh is inherently evil. Paul reminded them that Jesus – the Word of God – is the instrument by Whom our Three-In-One God created the world. Therefore Jesus was before all things as John reminds us in the introduction of his gospel account. In describing this concept to the Colossians, Paul used the Greek word πρωτεύω) prōteuō – preeminent. In our lives and our belief, Jesus must not only be important. He must be the only and central focus of our entire being. In other words, we must hold Him “Preeminent.”

Colossians and Ephesians were written by Paul the apostle from house arrest in Rome as he awaited his trial before Caesar. We will study this entire letter over the next few weeks. Colossae was a city in Asia Minor which had a large Jewish population including some Jews who had become Christian believers after hearing the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus from Epaphras. Paul wrote this letter to remind the Colossians that salvation in Christ results from knowing Jesus as our personal savior and having a relationship with Him – continually growing in knowledge of God, not from any other “secret” knowledge (Gnosos) or through any form of legalistic works.

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